It's probably too soon for a reprise, but I somehow missed the first go.
My brother wanted a tenor banjo for his birthday in 1983. I found one for 15 dollars at a flea market. When I arrived at his house to present it to him, he opened the door and exclaimed "Guess what I got myself for my birthday!?"
So there I was, stuck with a tenor banjo. And I certainly wasn't going to let 15 dollars go to waste.
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Similar story to many here.
My mom had an ancient nylon guitar that was lying around the house when I was a kid. It only had three strings but I would pluck along to the radio whenever something interesting came on.
My parents didn;t really listen to music that much but they had some old British army pipe band record lying around. I got hypnotized by the drones. They also had the sean Potts tin whistle record too, on vinyl (for the younger members here). It drove everybody else nuts
THe ball got rolling when My aunt moved about 45 minutes away from us. IN the late seventies our families would spend christmas together. She would play ITM stuff on the cassette player and told us about THistle and Shamrock on NPR. That's probably what pushed me over the edge, right there. I vividly remember playing a tape with Steeleye Span's first album on one side and some Battlefield Band album on the other. I would sit around and tape THistle and Shamrock and pretend I was playing pipes, in my bedroom.
For my 12th birthday I asked for a set of pipes. My folks, seeing a genuine interest, set me up with lessons. When we moved south of the Mason Dixon, I kept up with it through high school, and did the GHB competition thing. I went to Jimmy McIntosh's Balmoral School every summer, which was always pretty much a blast.
Later on in High school I got kind of tired of the pipe band scene, and went into "ITM Exile" . . .but have always kept a generation Bbwhistle around, and actually kept on playing that.
IN College I joined the campus early music group. We were the backing band for a dinner theatre type show, which a wonderful way to perform live. I was also in a "folk group" that had a grand total of about 3 gigs.
After college and through grad school, I gravitated mostly to bass and guitars. BUt I realized I really missed the whole feel of traditional music. There's a camaraderie in it that you don;t get in other places. SO, recently, I've been trying to find people to play with in NOrth Carolina, with a good deal of success so far. Good times
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
My father used to be a jazz trumpet player but chose a more "respectable" job, when he started a family. He still played when I was small and I always loved to listen to him. When I grew up, he stopped completely, but encouraged me and my brother to learn an instrument. I started with flute, moved on to piano and organ and ended up with classical guitar and electric bass. My brother played electric guitar, so it was a great luck that almost all our neighbours were musicians, too. Otherwise, the would have chased us away, I suppose.
At university I chose musicology as a minor, but didn't like it very much, because it was very theorethical and only focused on classical music. However, it kept me practicing, because I had to do some exams on the piano (which was hell!!). After my MA, I stopped playing music for serveral years. I always wanted to take up the violin, but I thought I was too old to learn.
At the tender age of 34 a friend dragged me to a German version of the Highland Games, where Dervish played. I didn't know any Irish music except of The Lord of the Dance, which I dind't like at all. At that time, I mainly listened to R&B and Jazz and a little classical music. But Dervish changed everything: I was immediately hooked and started to listend to Irish music. It took my four more years to finally pick up the fiddle, but I never regretted one second. Maybe that my friends think I am totally crazy and maybe I don't sound quite like Liz Caroll (as a matter of fact, I never will), but I love playing and listening to ITM.
I started to get classical lessons as well and although I sometimes use a lot of blue language while practicing, because my changing positions really sounds awful, I hope that someday I will be able to play classical stuff. Klezmer and Jazz as well.
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
My mother was a church organist, so it was just a normal thing for there to be music in our house. We sang in the car all the time, harmonizing as well whenever possible. I picked up the saxophone in 5th grade when they started "recruiting" for the middle school band. I quickly became pretty good at it, having a musical upbringing. In 9th grade, I got my first guitar, and took lessons for a few months, and picked that up quickly as well. This is what really got me going, since it was a lot more fun playing for people (especially the girls), and I began to learn folky-type songs (you know the singer-songwriter stuff, e.g. James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Paul Simon, etc.). It helped me get girls. I decided to go to college for music, but, being a Math geek as well, I was convinced to somehow combine these two skills and enter the "Recording Technology" program at a University. My aim was leaning towards Acoustics, like concert hall design, loudspeaker design, etc. (Note still no ITM in my life yet). The schooling part didn't work out so much, but the Music college culture changed me forever (that's another story, however). I played guitar in bars as part of an "acoustic duo" the better part of my college career, but eventually, money and poor grades (too much partying) made me drop out without a degree. Eventually I got a degree, albeit in Mathematics, with the intention of becoming a Math teacher, and eventually found myself in the software industry (where I am now), all the while keeping music in my life as best I could (though marriage, a house and kids put a damper on the manifestations of this passion).
About 5 years ago, I was taking a programming course on a Saturday, and I discovered an ITM radio program that aired during my commute to and from the class ("A Celtic Sojourn", on WGBH, Boston), and I was hooked. However, I still didn't play any ITM - it was purely listening at that point. A couple of years later, I found myself exposed to a local Fife and Drum Corps who impressed me so much that I joined up as a fifer, and there I was exposed to a bit more ITM, as the crossover is pretty significant. Still, I always had in the back of my mind the strong desire to play ITM, but knowing that a really good flute was gonna break the bank, so I kept putting it off. Then, just this past December, the F&D corps was invited to be the musical unit for a local Ancient Militia in the St. Patrick's Day parade in Galway, and this was the kick in the rump I needed to finally get myself an entry-level flute, which I am just now beginning to get a feel for.
A very twisty-turny musical road it is, and more bends ahead I think.
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
I was lucky enough to be around in Ireland during the "revival" of the seventies, and to go to concerts by the Bothies, Planxty, De Dannan, Stockton's Wing, and all the rest of the bands that were starting out around that time. I loved the music, and that love stayed with me ever since.
However, back then I really wanted to be a folk/blues/ragtime guitarist, and spent all my time learning the styles of people like John Renbourne, Stefan Grossman, and Guy Van Duser. I had a grand time of it and even got some minor paying gigs.
Only in the last few years - in my forties, and living in Canada - did I get the bug to actually try and play the stuff I grew up with, and now I'm having more fun and satisfaction with music than ever. I sometimes find myself wishing I'd taken up ITM many years ago when I lived close to the well, so to speak. But no, I think these things work out for the best. I'm "ready" to learn to play ITM now.
I suspect it's easier for someone living outside Ireland to be a late starter. It doesn't feel like I'm an adult trying to squeeze into a kindergartener's chair.
(Or is this cheating? Like Showaddy, I haven't managed to alter my past.)
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Shall I lie down here on the couch, doctor?
Well, as with so many of us, I hold my parents at least partly responsible. They had a pretty good collection of albums by folk-revival performers: Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Theodore Bikel, to name a few, but even more significantly, the Clancy Brothers, Dubliners and Seamus Ennis. So I remember lots of folk music playing on the stereo, sometimes by their choice, sometimes by mine. Even as I got more interested in rock, and as a young teen wanted to play rock guitar (purchasing a $20 Tiesco-Delray electric six-string), I still had a strong folk influence running through my musical preferences.
When I was 13, I began attending the annual Fox Hollow Festival near Albany, NY, which had an abundance of music in the American/British Isles/Irish tradition: performers like Dave Bromberg, John McCutcheon, Lou Killen, John Roberts and Tony Barrand, Boys of the Lough (Fox Hollow was the site of one of their first public performances anywhere, I believe), John Hartford, Jay Ungar, Malcolm Daglish & Grey Larson, and a number of others probably less familiar to people here.
Listening to, and buying albums of, all this great music, I found myself preferring more my acoustic guitar to my electric, and during high school picked up mandolin as well.
But I still hadn't really found a true model to guide my playing in a definitive direction. Then, when I was 16, I happened to hear on a local folk music radio show the likes of Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention, and most of all, Martin Carthy. Hearing them just helped me to realize that there were so many ways of interpreting traditional music, interpolating contemporary elements in both obvious and subtle ways. That was when I decided to truly focus on folk.
I continued to listen to folk radio shows, attend festivals and concerts, buy albums and expand my familiarity, not only into British but Scots and Irish -- hence discovering Planxty, Bothy Band, De Danaan, Battlefield Band et al. The more I heard and read about these performers, the more I wanted to explore the firmament for this folk revival. So for my junior year of college I arranged to do an independent study of "modern" folk music in England, Ireland and Scotland, during which I had the opportunity to get some valuable session and performance experience.
Now, what did I say about parents? I can certainly, and sincerely, thank them for exposing me to this music and then giving me the chance -- whether funding my trip or just lending me a sleeping bag for a festival -- to learn more about and experiment with it instead of pushing me down a particular road. I try to do much the same for my kids, and even the other teens/young adults in our music/dance community. If there's a performer, or an album, I think they might like or find inspiring for their own musical activity, I try to make sure they hear it. Not exactly the same as having them sitting by my feet at the hearth while I sing or play, but along the same lines.
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Like KFG, I don't remember the beginning. What started me as a songwriter was an excruciating crush on a songwriter. As soon as I was better at it than him, the crush went away. (Mostly. *Sigh*.)
Diddly snuck up on me. I think I'm an opportunist. It was kind of... just... like... *sitting* there, so I thought, what the heck - I'll play that stuff. Why not? As much as I'd like to proclaim my undying musical loyalty to nothing but trad, I'm pretty sure if there was a bunch of ska or flamenco or hindu ragas lying around, I'd have started playing that instead. Especially if there was beer.
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Ah, it was my heritage...when I was a young thing growing up in the green fields of Illinois, my Irish grandpa would take me on his knee and tell me tales of the old country. Well, not really...he was Scots-Irish, Presbyterian, and never said much to us kids except: "Don't go in that hog pen, that sow will make a muff out of you."
Like Kerri, I am a music opportunist. I have always loved and played music, starting out in the dread Honk and Squeak Band (aka "Sixth Grade Band") playing clarinet, BECAISE MY PARENTS WOULDN'T BUY A VIOLIN. How I longed for a violin....anyway, did that, played piano, organ (love those diapasons...), guitar, recorder, banjo (arrrgh!). For the record, I have very little talent, just bulldog tenacity.
I bought a fiddle when I was 44. (My mom and dad are still mystifyed by this fiddle thing.) My teacher played for the local Scottish Country Dance bunch, and I learned Tennpenny Bit. Hooked. My dear husband, who has dallied with bluegrass guitar for centruries, was forced to learn the difference between a jig and a reel. He has risen to the task, becoming conversant with strange tunings, modes and what have you.
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
My stepfather's Father was an itinerant road worker and cobbler who came over from Jamaica in the early 1930s. Suffering from home-sickness, he went off to fight for the International Brigade in the Spanish civil war, in the hope that he might be posted to Spanish Town, in the Parish of St Catherine, which was near where he was brought up. He was shocked to find himself in Valencia, gun in hand, only weeks later. Fortunately he survived the war and slipped out of the country when the Fascists took power. On his return he capitalised on his experiences and set up the first Chorizo Bar in Hammersmith. Behind the humble stall where he plied his trade was the notorious Mother Blackhat pub, where the very first session, anywhere in the world, took place on September 13 1942. It was started by Irish squaddies, passing through to billets in Walthamstow, Burnham On Crouch and Bishops Stortford. The very first ever Session-Moll, Iris Squint, who also invented the spoons, often stopped at his Chorizo Bar to 'line her stomach' before the epic length sessions that took place before it became common knowledge that you only had to play a tune through three times. She was appalled at the rhythmic imperfections at those early sessions; imperfections which were due to the fact that the participants had never played together in such large groups, and that until they started receiving their army pay, had never had enough money to buy more than half a pint of the black stuff per evening. Not to labour the point, they were completely ratarsed. Iris had heard it said that West Indians were renowned for their sense of rhythm, and she concocted the cunning plan of inviting him to join the session as 'traditional drummer', from a fictitious Rastafarian enclave in the depths of County Leitrim. He had no drum, sadly, but she persuaded him to bring in the large paella pan he stewed his chorizos in into the pub. He actually had very little sense of rhythm, and would actually 'follow' the melody instruments, banging the base of the pan with his spice-pestle, which he held in the middle, and rocked from side to side. Thus a new musical style was formed. You can hear him, playing with Iris and an unidentified (and completely inaudible) fiddler on the track 'Molly's Biscuits/Mary the Blacksmith' on the now legendary recording 'Seamus in the Smog'. One day he was playing away, when the pestle went straight through the base of his beloved Paella pan, leaving nothing but a rim. He had smuggled the 24 inch diameter pan all the way from Valecia in his trousers, braving the icy, and frequently snow-bound passes of the 'Haute Pyrenees', and the sun baked plains of Essex, and had come to think of it almost as the son he had never (by that time) had, so was understandably distraught at the loss. As he sat weeping in the snug, who should walk in but Micho Rustler, the famous whistle playing cowboy, who's goat had sadly expired on the pavement outside. Eying the Paella-Pan Rim, the weeping drummer, and the defunct Pestle, a crazy idea came into his head...
... to be continued
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Who ever said that truth was stranger than fiction (of course, not impugning the veracity of the previous tale by any means ...)? I too await patiently the next installment.
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
My family is Polish, oddly enough, but I've always been draw towards Irish music. My first foray into actually playing something myself started with the purchase of a cheap tin whistle on a family trip to Virginia when I was twelve.
I must have infected the family. My mother bought a copy of the massive 'O'Neil's Music of Ireland' and a mandolin. Several whistles later, after having played around with the mandolin, I bought a fiddle, and it all spiraled down from there. It's a sickness, I swear. ^_^
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Well there you go. It's not quite what I thought, but it'll do in a pinch.
bate1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (bt)
tr.v. bat·ed, bat·ing, bates
1: To lessen the force or intensity of; moderate: “To his dying day he bated his breath a little when he told the story” (George Eliot).
2: To take away; subtract.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Middle English baten, short for abaten. See abate.]
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Stream of consciousness:
Stephen Foster songs, cowboy songs learned in grade school, played at home on harmonica
Occasional Burl Ives or Weavers song on radio
A new style called Bluegrass coming from the radio
My Dad singing Goodnight Irene, Trouble in Mind and Flatfoot Floogey
A new style called Rock&Roll coming from the radio
Everly Brothers, Sonny James, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Local honky-tonk players
First guitar
Duane Eddy
A couple of books of American folk songs (two bits each),
Folk singalongs with church youth group
Playing guitar in a honky-tonk rock&roll band, Ray Charles
Joan Baez, Mississippi John Hurt, Pete Seeger; Peter, Paul & Mary, Beatles
Playing in rock&roll cover band and PP&M-inspired folk band
[College (aka university)]
Digging into books and recordings of trad music in univ library
British/Irish folk recordings, Newport Folk Festival recordings
Professor friends’ Early Music collection
Hard to trace at this point. Running off in all directions.
Segovia, classical guitar diversion
[Grad school (no life!)]
Steeleye Span, Pentangle, the revivalist explosion, Martin Carthy
Public TV broadcasts of Philly Folk Festival, Fox Hollow, etc.
Boys of the Lough [By now, I’m hooked on ITM], Chieftains, De Dannan, Planxty, etc. …
In a lot of ways, ITM is the satisfaction of desires generated by the previous stuff. What does that mean, Dr. Freud?
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Well, I remember;
Listening to at least one of Macoll and Parkers' "Radio Ballads" in the '50s;
Mr Tom Forrest singing"The Village Pump" at a Harvest supper in Ambridge;
the works of Manly Wade Wellman;
knowing I could never afford an electric guitar like the Beatles;
somebody standing up in a bar in North London and singing "The Barley Mow";
meeting a young lady fiddler in a Surrey youth hostel in the late '60s;
getting backstage at a university Planxty gig with same young lady............the rest, as they say, is history.....
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Dad played trumpet, and encouraged all in family to play band instruments (I went with cornet, then trumpet since cornet was out of fashion). Music always part of family life, all types, especially dixieland and show tunes, which were dad's favorites. Played in jazz bands starting in high school, and continuing through college. Taught myself harmonica in high school, and guitar in college. After a hiatus, joined church choir and played various instruments in church. While I had heard folk and trad music in my youth, I really seriously discovered trad music the way Fyffer Guy did, via Brian O'Donovan's show out of Boston, MA on WGBH, although a decade before Fyffer Guy did. Started bringing guitar to sessions, taught self tin whistle, got wife interested, and she started learning fiddle. Attended Gaelic Roots twice and Catskills once. After much convincing of wife that it was good idea, bought B/C accordion and started to learn. Started band with wife and two others last year, and now enjoying the heck out of it. So thanks to Mr. O'Donovan for helping me find the musical genre that helped turn a life-long flirtation with music into a true passion.
AL Brown
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
About twenty years ago, I was riding a motorcycle on a long, lonesome highway, going about 180 miles per hour with a guitar strapped to my back. On one side of the road was a mountain, on the other was the drop of a cliff. Well, a string broke and wrapped itself around a sign indicating go slow, dangerous curve. I flew off the bike and yup, dropped off the cliff. I figured it was curtains for me and decided to write one last song: “Don’t want a pickle, just want to ride my motorsickle, Don’t want a tickle, just want to ride my motorsickle, And I don’t want to die, just ride my motorscycle.” I learnt it real fast. But I didn’t die, I landed on the hood (bonnet) of a police car and it died.
Much more interesting than my story. After becoming the clichéd woman dumped for a younger one, I started going through my cd’s in case the dirty, rotten scoundrel left some of his. I was planning on baking them in the microwave. But I found an old compilation of celtic songs and tunes. Needing a lift, I played it and went gaga over the Altan recording. Went out and bought more. The collection grew. Decided to go back to learning the fiddle. Had taken violin lessons as a kid in school, which I gave up in favor of the drama club. And finally after about a year of lessons, an embryo of lilt can be heard, sort of. Oh, and the scumball, haven’t heard from him. But if by chance I happen to see him with fiddle and bow in hand, I can use the cheapie bow I have in reserve and shove it up his….
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
KFG, I only sing with feeling when singing about the time I helped take out the trash for a friend named Alice, you remember Alice?. And you should see the photographs from that!
No, not bitter at all! Just practicing a little proctology
Deb
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Mine is a tale of economics and availability. Music being a family tradition, I grew up around a lot of it. My father was in a pipe band. I was one of those urchins playing on the playground while the band practiced in the park. Got the rhythms and sounds into my ear. With the passing of my mother and my father’s acquisition of a new wife came a piano into the house, because it was proper, and a loss of the pipe band because it was not. Being the sixth of twelve in a ‘blended’ family, when it came time for me to get the piano lessons, all of the others, except my older half-brother, had been total failures on the musical front and the payments on the new house were too much so I had to be happy with borrowing my step cousin’s clarinet and taking school band. I didn’t find that satisfying and my cousin decided he wanted his clarinet back. So, dropped out of band in Junior High and got into choir and theater. I picked up a guitar at the neighbor’s yard sale for $10.00 and started accompanying myself on some folk songs. Doing the Joan Baez and Cat Stevens thing. One of my first was a Gordan Lightfoot ditty. In college I would do a bit at wrap parties for shows and tours and stuff. Then I pick up a Jethro Tull platter form the library, put it on the old turn table, and said to myself, “Hey, this is very familiar.” At about this same time I started reading Nordic Sagas and Celtic historical fiction. Picked up a bit of the culture and history. And I met my future husband who was a piper and started making out to the likes of Bothy Band and Planxty, a very interesting way to internalize the rhythms. I started hanging out with his band and reacquainting myself with childhood friends because he was in the band my father had started in. The circle closes. I start chanter lessons and we marry very quickly. And very quickly start a family. 20 years of child rearing and singing bawdy Irish songs in the kitchen and suddenly my youngest is entering kindergarten and I am at a crossroads. What to do with the rest of my life? Economics and availability again. My husband and some of my children are in a pipe band, and the lessons are free, why not. Surprising myself as much as everyone else, I got along pretty quickly, auditioning into a band in under a year, winning first place in grade 5 in under 3 years and placing in grade 4 in 5 years, and a hands down first in grade 4 last summer. About the time we started in our current band, my husband and I decided to check out the session scene here in Minnesota. We were surprised so find it very active and creatively satisfying and totally free. Economics and availability. I am now totally immersed and obsessed and having the time of my life.
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Jim, if you ever need a sponsor, I'm here for you man. Just drop me an email. We'll go to CBGB's and have a night of punk/indie. That should do the trick.
In the meantime, thanks for the laugh, I needed that.
(And if I could only put down this damn flute. I'm trying to keep it at least to slow English songs, but the bloody jigs keep creeping up on me from behind. I hate when they do that.)
What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
previous thread was: http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display.php/3632
It's probably too soon for a reprise, but I somehow missed the first go.
My brother wanted a tenor banjo for his birthday in 1983. I found one for 15 dollars at a flea market. When I arrived at his house to present it to him, he opened the door and exclaimed "Guess what I got myself for my birthday!?"
So there I was, stuck with a tenor banjo. And I certainly wasn't going to let 15 dollars go to waste.
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by BarryM
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
My father died when I was one, and all he me was a lone. . .Harmony archtop.
The road goes too far back for me to actually remember the beginning.
KFG
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by KFG
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
. . .and all he *left* me was a lone. . .Harmony archtop.
I even proof read that several times.
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by KFG
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Similar story to many here.
My mom had an ancient nylon guitar that was lying around the house when I was a kid. It only had three strings but I would pluck along to the radio whenever something interesting came on.
My parents didn;t really listen to music that much but they had some old British army pipe band record lying around. I got hypnotized by the drones. They also had the sean Potts tin whistle record too, on vinyl (for the younger members here). It drove everybody else nuts
THe ball got rolling when My aunt moved about 45 minutes away from us. IN the late seventies our families would spend christmas together. She would play ITM stuff on the cassette player and told us about THistle and Shamrock on NPR. That's probably what pushed me over the edge, right there. I vividly remember playing a tape with Steeleye Span's first album on one side and some Battlefield Band album on the other. I would sit around and tape THistle and Shamrock and pretend I was playing pipes, in my bedroom.
For my 12th birthday I asked for a set of pipes. My folks, seeing a genuine interest, set me up with lessons. When we moved south of the Mason Dixon, I kept up with it through high school, and did the GHB competition thing. I went to Jimmy McIntosh's Balmoral School every summer, which was always pretty much a blast.
Later on in High school I got kind of tired of the pipe band scene, and went into "ITM Exile" . . .but have always kept a generation Bbwhistle around, and actually kept on playing that.
IN College I joined the campus early music group. We were the backing band for a dinner theatre type show, which a wonderful way to perform live. I was also in a "folk group" that had a grand total of about 3 gigs.
After college and through grad school, I gravitated mostly to bass and guitars. BUt I realized I really missed the whole feel of traditional music. There's a camaraderie in it that you don;t get in other places. SO, recently, I've been trying to find people to play with in NOrth Carolina, with a good deal of success so far. Good times
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by wormdiet
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Nope - my past aint changed since the last discussion.
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
My father used to be a jazz trumpet player but chose a more "respectable" job, when he started a family. He still played when I was small and I always loved to listen to him. When I grew up, he stopped completely, but encouraged me and my brother to learn an instrument. I started with flute, moved on to piano and organ and ended up with classical guitar and electric bass. My brother played electric guitar, so it was a great luck that almost all our neighbours were musicians, too. Otherwise, the would have chased us away, I suppose.
At university I chose musicology as a minor, but didn't like it very much, because it was very theorethical and only focused on classical music. However, it kept me practicing, because I had to do some exams on the piano (which was hell!!). After my MA, I stopped playing music for serveral years. I always wanted to take up the violin, but I thought I was too old to learn.
At the tender age of 34 a friend dragged me to a German version of the Highland Games, where Dervish played. I didn't know any Irish music except of The Lord of the Dance, which I dind't like at all. At that time, I mainly listened to R&B and Jazz and a little classical music. But Dervish changed everything: I was immediately hooked and started to listend to Irish music. It took my four more years to finally pick up the fiddle, but I never regretted one second. Maybe that my friends think I am totally crazy and maybe I don't sound quite like Liz Caroll (as a matter of fact, I never will), but I love playing and listening to ITM.
I started to get classical lessons as well and although I sometimes use a lot of blue language while practicing, because my changing positions really sounds awful, I hope that someday I will be able to play classical stuff. Klezmer and Jazz as well.
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by fiddlinsue
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
My mother was a church organist, so it was just a normal thing for there to be music in our house. We sang in the car all the time, harmonizing as well whenever possible. I picked up the saxophone in 5th grade when they started "recruiting" for the middle school band. I quickly became pretty good at it, having a musical upbringing. In 9th grade, I got my first guitar, and took lessons for a few months, and picked that up quickly as well. This is what really got me going, since it was a lot more fun playing for people (especially the girls), and I began to learn folky-type songs (you know the singer-songwriter stuff, e.g. James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Paul Simon, etc.). It helped me get girls. I decided to go to college for music, but, being a Math geek as well, I was convinced to somehow combine these two skills and enter the "Recording Technology" program at a University. My aim was leaning towards Acoustics, like concert hall design, loudspeaker design, etc. (Note still no ITM in my life yet). The schooling part didn't work out so much, but the Music college culture changed me forever (that's another story, however). I played guitar in bars as part of an "acoustic duo" the better part of my college career, but eventually, money and poor grades (too much partying) made me drop out without a degree. Eventually I got a degree, albeit in Mathematics, with the intention of becoming a Math teacher, and eventually found myself in the software industry (where I am now), all the while keeping music in my life as best I could (though marriage, a house and kids put a damper on the manifestations of this passion).
About 5 years ago, I was taking a programming course on a Saturday, and I discovered an ITM radio program that aired during my commute to and from the class ("A Celtic Sojourn", on WGBH, Boston), and I was hooked. However, I still didn't play any ITM - it was purely listening at that point. A couple of years later, I found myself exposed to a local Fife and Drum Corps who impressed me so much that I joined up as a fifer, and there I was exposed to a bit more ITM, as the crossover is pretty significant. Still, I always had in the back of my mind the strong desire to play ITM, but knowing that a really good flute was gonna break the bank, so I kept putting it off. Then, just this past December, the F&D corps was invited to be the musical unit for a local Ancient Militia in the St. Patrick's Day parade in Galway, and this was the kick in the rump I needed to finally get myself an entry-level flute, which I am just now beginning to get a feel for.
A very twisty-turny musical road it is, and more bends ahead I think.
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by FyfferGuy
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
I was lucky enough to be around in Ireland during the "revival" of the seventies, and to go to concerts by the Bothies, Planxty, De Dannan, Stockton's Wing, and all the rest of the bands that were starting out around that time. I loved the music, and that love stayed with me ever since.
However, back then I really wanted to be a folk/blues/ragtime guitarist, and spent all my time learning the styles of people like John Renbourne, Stefan Grossman, and Guy Van Duser. I had a grand time of it and even got some minor paying gigs.
Only in the last few years - in my forties, and living in Canada - did I get the bug to actually try and play the stuff I grew up with, and now I'm having more fun and satisfaction with music than ever. I sometimes find myself wishing I'd taken up ITM many years ago when I lived close to the well, so to speak. But no, I think these things work out for the best. I'm "ready" to learn to play ITM now.
I suspect it's easier for someone living outside Ireland to be a late starter. It doesn't feel like I'm an adult trying to squeeze into a kindergartener's chair.
(Or is this cheating? Like Showaddy, I haven't managed to alter my past.)
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by grego
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
The music, and jealousy. I wanted to join in.
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by bodhran bliss
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Shall I lie down here on the couch, doctor?
Well, as with so many of us, I hold my parents at least partly responsible. They had a pretty good collection of albums by folk-revival performers: Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Theodore Bikel, to name a few, but even more significantly, the Clancy Brothers, Dubliners and Seamus Ennis. So I remember lots of folk music playing on the stereo, sometimes by their choice, sometimes by mine. Even as I got more interested in rock, and as a young teen wanted to play rock guitar (purchasing a $20 Tiesco-Delray electric six-string), I still had a strong folk influence running through my musical preferences.
When I was 13, I began attending the annual Fox Hollow Festival near Albany, NY, which had an abundance of music in the American/British Isles/Irish tradition: performers like Dave Bromberg, John McCutcheon, Lou Killen, John Roberts and Tony Barrand, Boys of the Lough (Fox Hollow was the site of one of their first public performances anywhere, I believe), John Hartford, Jay Ungar, Malcolm Daglish & Grey Larson, and a number of others probably less familiar to people here.
Listening to, and buying albums of, all this great music, I found myself preferring more my acoustic guitar to my electric, and during high school picked up mandolin as well.
But I still hadn't really found a true model to guide my playing in a definitive direction. Then, when I was 16, I happened to hear on a local folk music radio show the likes of Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention, and most of all, Martin Carthy. Hearing them just helped me to realize that there were so many ways of interpreting traditional music, interpolating contemporary elements in both obvious and subtle ways. That was when I decided to truly focus on folk.
I continued to listen to folk radio shows, attend festivals and concerts, buy albums and expand my familiarity, not only into British but Scots and Irish -- hence discovering Planxty, Bothy Band, De Danaan, Battlefield Band et al. The more I heard and read about these performers, the more I wanted to explore the firmament for this folk revival. So for my junior year of college I arranged to do an independent study of "modern" folk music in England, Ireland and Scotland, during which I had the opportunity to get some valuable session and performance experience.
Now, what did I say about parents? I can certainly, and sincerely, thank them for exposing me to this music and then giving me the chance -- whether funding my trip or just lending me a sleeping bag for a festival -- to learn more about and experiment with it instead of pushing me down a particular road. I try to do much the same for my kids, and even the other teens/young adults in our music/dance community. If there's a performer, or an album, I think they might like or find inspiring for their own musical activity, I try to make sure they hear it. Not exactly the same as having them sitting by my feet at the hearth while I sing or play, but along the same lines.
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by sts
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Like KFG, I don't remember the beginning. What started me as a songwriter was an excruciating crush on a songwriter. As soon as I was better at it than him, the crush went away. (Mostly. *Sigh*.)
Diddly snuck up on me. I think I'm an opportunist. It was kind of... just... like... *sitting* there, so I thought, what the heck - I'll play that stuff. Why not? As much as I'd like to proclaim my undying musical loyalty to nothing but trad, I'm pretty sure if there was a bunch of ska or flamenco or hindu ragas lying around, I'd have started playing that instead. Especially if there was beer.
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Ah, it was my heritage...when I was a young thing growing up in the green fields of Illinois, my Irish grandpa would take me on his knee and tell me tales of the old country. Well, not really...he was Scots-Irish, Presbyterian, and never said much to us kids except: "Don't go in that hog pen, that sow will make a muff out of you."
Like Kerri, I am a music opportunist. I have always loved and played music, starting out in the dread Honk and Squeak Band (aka "Sixth Grade Band") playing clarinet, BECAISE MY PARENTS WOULDN'T BUY A VIOLIN. How I longed for a violin....anyway, did that, played piano, organ (love those diapasons...), guitar, recorder, banjo (arrrgh!). For the record, I have very little talent, just bulldog tenacity.
I bought a fiddle when I was 44. (My mom and dad are still mystifyed by this fiddle thing.) My teacher played for the local Scottish Country Dance bunch, and I learned Tennpenny Bit. Hooked. My dear husband, who has dallied with bluegrass guitar for centruries, was forced to learn the difference between a jig and a reel. He has risen to the task, becoming conversant with strange tunings, modes and what have you.
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by Batlady
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
My stepfather's Father was an itinerant road worker and cobbler who came over from Jamaica in the early 1930s. Suffering from home-sickness, he went off to fight for the International Brigade in the Spanish civil war, in the hope that he might be posted to Spanish Town, in the Parish of St Catherine, which was near where he was brought up. He was shocked to find himself in Valencia, gun in hand, only weeks later. Fortunately he survived the war and slipped out of the country when the Fascists took power. On his return he capitalised on his experiences and set up the first Chorizo Bar in Hammersmith. Behind the humble stall where he plied his trade was the notorious Mother Blackhat pub, where the very first session, anywhere in the world, took place on September 13 1942. It was started by Irish squaddies, passing through to billets in Walthamstow, Burnham On Crouch and Bishops Stortford. The very first ever Session-Moll, Iris Squint, who also invented the spoons, often stopped at his Chorizo Bar to 'line her stomach' before the epic length sessions that took place before it became common knowledge that you only had to play a tune through three times. She was appalled at the rhythmic imperfections at those early sessions; imperfections which were due to the fact that the participants had never played together in such large groups, and that until they started receiving their army pay, had never had enough money to buy more than half a pint of the black stuff per evening. Not to labour the point, they were completely ratarsed. Iris had heard it said that West Indians were renowned for their sense of rhythm, and she concocted the cunning plan of inviting him to join the session as 'traditional drummer', from a fictitious Rastafarian enclave in the depths of County Leitrim. He had no drum, sadly, but she persuaded him to bring in the large paella pan he stewed his chorizos in into the pub. He actually had very little sense of rhythm, and would actually 'follow' the melody instruments, banging the base of the pan with his spice-pestle, which he held in the middle, and rocked from side to side. Thus a new musical style was formed. You can hear him, playing with Iris and an unidentified (and completely inaudible) fiddler on the track 'Molly's Biscuits/Mary the Blacksmith' on the now legendary recording 'Seamus in the Smog'. One day he was playing away, when the pestle went straight through the base of his beloved Paella pan, leaving nothing but a rim. He had smuggled the 24 inch diameter pan all the way from Valecia in his trousers, braving the icy, and frequently snow-bound passes of the 'Haute Pyrenees', and the sun baked plains of Essex, and had come to think of it almost as the son he had never (by that time) had, so was understandably distraught at the loss. As he sat weeping in the snug, who should walk in but Micho Rustler, the famous whistle playing cowboy, who's goat had sadly expired on the pavement outside. Eying the Paella-Pan Rim, the weeping drummer, and the defunct Pestle, a crazy idea came into his head...
... to be continued
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by Ottery
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
*waiting with bated breath*
*whatever that means*
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
It means, 'holding your breath', Kerri.
Unlike 'Baited Breath', which means your breath smells like bait (fish, maggots, worms etc...)
Mark
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by Ottery
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Who ever said that truth was stranger than fiction (of course, not impugning the veracity of the previous tale by any means ...)? I too await patiently the next installment.
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by FyfferGuy
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
My family is Polish, oddly enough, but I've always been draw towards Irish music. My first foray into actually playing something myself started with the purchase of a cheap tin whistle on a family trip to Virginia when I was twelve.
I must have infected the family. My mother bought a copy of the massive 'O'Neil's Music of Ireland' and a mandolin. Several whistles later, after having played around with the mandolin, I bought a fiddle, and it all spiraled down from there. It's a sickness, I swear. ^_^
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by Smarmy Scribbler
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
It's a sickness that produces 'baited breath'?
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by Batlady
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Well there you go. It's not quite what I thought, but it'll do in a pinch.
bate1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (bt)
tr.v. bat·ed, bat·ing, bates
1: To lessen the force or intensity of; moderate: “To his dying day he bated his breath a little when he told the story” (George Eliot).
2: To take away; subtract.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Middle English baten, short for abaten. See abate.]
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
I thought it was like "she bated the horse nearly to death before i would move"
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by grego
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Stream of consciousness:
Stephen Foster songs, cowboy songs learned in grade school, played at home on harmonica
Occasional Burl Ives or Weavers song on radio
A new style called Bluegrass coming from the radio
My Dad singing Goodnight Irene, Trouble in Mind and Flatfoot Floogey
A new style called Rock&Roll coming from the radio
Everly Brothers, Sonny James, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Local honky-tonk players
First guitar
Duane Eddy
A couple of books of American folk songs (two bits each),
Folk singalongs with church youth group
Playing guitar in a honky-tonk rock&roll band, Ray Charles
Joan Baez, Mississippi John Hurt, Pete Seeger; Peter, Paul & Mary, Beatles
Playing in rock&roll cover band and PP&M-inspired folk band
[College (aka university)]
Digging into books and recordings of trad music in univ library
British/Irish folk recordings, Newport Folk Festival recordings
Professor friends’ Early Music collection
Hard to trace at this point. Running off in all directions.
Segovia, classical guitar diversion
[Grad school (no life!)]
Steeleye Span, Pentangle, the revivalist explosion, Martin Carthy
Public TV broadcasts of Philly Folk Festival, Fox Hollow, etc.
Boys of the Lough [By now, I’m hooked on ITM], Chieftains, De Dannan, Planxty, etc. …
In a lot of ways, ITM is the satisfaction of desires generated by the previous stuff. What does that mean, Dr. Freud?
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by Bob himself
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Well, I remember;
Listening to at least one of Macoll and Parkers' "Radio Ballads" in the '50s;
Mr Tom Forrest singing"The Village Pump" at a Harvest supper in Ambridge;
the works of Manly Wade Wellman;
knowing I could never afford an electric guitar like the Beatles;
somebody standing up in a bar in North London and singing "The Barley Mow";
meeting a young lady fiddler in a Surrey youth hostel in the late '60s;
getting backstage at a university Planxty gig with same young lady............the rest, as they say, is history.....
# Posted on February 22nd 2005 by Guernsey Pete
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Dad played trumpet, and encouraged all in family to play band instruments (I went with cornet, then trumpet since cornet was out of fashion). Music always part of family life, all types, especially dixieland and show tunes, which were dad's favorites. Played in jazz bands starting in high school, and continuing through college. Taught myself harmonica in high school, and guitar in college. After a hiatus, joined church choir and played various instruments in church. While I had heard folk and trad music in my youth, I really seriously discovered trad music the way Fyffer Guy did, via Brian O'Donovan's show out of Boston, MA on WGBH, although a decade before Fyffer Guy did. Started bringing guitar to sessions, taught self tin whistle, got wife interested, and she started learning fiddle. Attended Gaelic Roots twice and Catskills once. After much convincing of wife that it was good idea, bought B/C accordion and started to learn. Started band with wife and two others last year, and now enjoying the heck out of it. So thanks to Mr. O'Donovan for helping me find the musical genre that helped turn a life-long flirtation with music into a true passion.
AL Brown
# Posted on February 23rd 2005 by AlBrown
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
About twenty years ago, I was riding a motorcycle on a long, lonesome highway, going about 180 miles per hour with a guitar strapped to my back. On one side of the road was a mountain, on the other was the drop of a cliff. Well, a string broke and wrapped itself around a sign indicating go slow, dangerous curve. I flew off the bike and yup, dropped off the cliff. I figured it was curtains for me and decided to write one last song: “Don’t want a pickle, just want to ride my motorsickle, Don’t want a tickle, just want to ride my motorsickle, And I don’t want to die, just ride my motorscycle.” I learnt it real fast. But I didn’t die, I landed on the hood (bonnet) of a police car and it died.
Much more interesting than my story. After becoming the clichéd woman dumped for a younger one, I started going through my cd’s in case the dirty, rotten scoundrel left some of his. I was planning on baking them in the microwave. But I found an old compilation of celtic songs and tunes. Needing a lift, I played it and went gaga over the Altan recording. Went out and bought more. The collection grew. Decided to go back to learning the fiddle. Had taken violin lessons as a kid in school, which I gave up in favor of the drama club. And finally after about a year of lessons, an embryo of lilt can be heard, sort of. Oh, and the scumball, haven’t heard from him. But if by chance I happen to see him with fiddle and bow in hand, I can use the cheapie bow I have in reserve and shove it up his….
# Posted on February 23rd 2005 by Agnes Nutter
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
"I landed on the hood (bonnet) of a police car and it died."
You have to sing that with feeling, like you just squashed a cop. Try it again next time it comes around on the guitar.
"I can use the cheapie bow I have in reserve and shove it up his…."
But at least it's good to see you aren't bitter.
KFG
# Posted on February 23rd 2005 by KFG
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
KFG, I only sing with feeling when singing about the time I helped take out the trash for a friend named Alice, you remember Alice?. And you should see the photographs from that!
No, not bitter at all! Just practicing a little proctology
Deb
# Posted on February 23rd 2005 by Agnes Nutter
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Mine is a tale of economics and availability. Music being a family tradition, I grew up around a lot of it. My father was in a pipe band. I was one of those urchins playing on the playground while the band practiced in the park. Got the rhythms and sounds into my ear. With the passing of my mother and my father’s acquisition of a new wife came a piano into the house, because it was proper, and a loss of the pipe band because it was not. Being the sixth of twelve in a ‘blended’ family, when it came time for me to get the piano lessons, all of the others, except my older half-brother, had been total failures on the musical front and the payments on the new house were too much so I had to be happy with borrowing my step cousin’s clarinet and taking school band. I didn’t find that satisfying and my cousin decided he wanted his clarinet back. So, dropped out of band in Junior High and got into choir and theater. I picked up a guitar at the neighbor’s yard sale for $10.00 and started accompanying myself on some folk songs. Doing the Joan Baez and Cat Stevens thing. One of my first was a Gordan Lightfoot ditty. In college I would do a bit at wrap parties for shows and tours and stuff. Then I pick up a Jethro Tull platter form the library, put it on the old turn table, and said to myself, “Hey, this is very familiar.” At about this same time I started reading Nordic Sagas and Celtic historical fiction. Picked up a bit of the culture and history. And I met my future husband who was a piper and started making out to the likes of Bothy Band and Planxty, a very interesting way to internalize the rhythms. I started hanging out with his band and reacquainting myself with childhood friends because he was in the band my father had started in. The circle closes. I start chanter lessons and we marry very quickly. And very quickly start a family. 20 years of child rearing and singing bawdy Irish songs in the kitchen and suddenly my youngest is entering kindergarten and I am at a crossroads. What to do with the rest of my life? Economics and availability again. My husband and some of my children are in a pipe band, and the lessons are free, why not. Surprising myself as much as everyone else, I got along pretty quickly, auditioning into a band in under a year, winning first place in grade 5 in under 3 years and placing in grade 4 in 5 years, and a hands down first in grade 4 last summer. About the time we started in our current band, my husband and I decided to check out the session scene here in Minnesota. We were surprised so find it very active and creatively satisfying and totally free. Economics and availability. I am now totally immersed and obsessed and having the time of my life.
# Posted on February 25th 2005 by baglady
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
Jim, if you ever need a sponsor, I'm here for you man. Just drop me an email. We'll go to CBGB's and have a night of punk/indie. That should do the trick.
In the meantime, thanks for the laugh, I needed that.
(And if I could only put down this damn flute. I'm trying to keep it at least to slow English songs, but the bloody jigs keep creeping up on me from behind. I hate when they do that.)
KFG
# Posted on February 26th 2005 by KFG
Re: What started you on this long musical road (reprise)
I didn't plan for it. If I did, I would have screwed it up long before now.
# Posted on February 26th 2005 by CeolCairdeas